Friday, April 11, 2008

Blogger versus skunk DAY 1

With the almost-doorframe-sized KULLEN closet slid carefully into the basement rec room, I found myself in need of some sort of challenge.... what to do...

Last year we had a skunk move in under the garbage shed. Searching online provided a solution that seemed like it could work... So off to Farm Boy I went, and came back home to chop up one yellow onion and one jalapeno pepper, and boil them in a water/cayenne pepper solution for 20 minutes. After straining the liquid into a spray bottle, I was all set.

I excessively coated the ground around the hole leading under the shed, then sprinkled a layer of flour on the wet dirt. The next morning, pawprints led out of the hole but did not return. I sprinkled more flour, waited a few days, but the skunk was gone. The hole was filled, stones were laid atop it, and the skunks never returned to the undersides of that shed.

Our other shed on the other hand.... sometime during the winter a skunk (or two?) has gone beneath our bigger shed. You know, the weatherproofed nice one that we keep all our excess stuff in. Our now skunk-scented stuff. Like stuff we were going to sell at a garage sale. Or our patio furniture. Or our strollers.

Since I have only a quarter of the anti-skunk juice left, and the amount of escape areas from beneath that shed are numerous, a new plan must be set in place.

My initial thought process went something like:1. Get one of those loud air horns.2. Shut myself into the shed3. Plug ears and honk (the horn) like mad.

That plan was abandoned when I realized "Since the skunk scent is lingering simply from it living under there, what would happen should it wake, suddenly startled, and spray... with me in a non-ventilated shed directly above?"

So, Plan B was put into action: yesterday, a small radio was placed in the shed playing talk radio loud enough that the skunk could hear, but not so loud as to violate noise bylaws... and if the skunk isn't scared away by the sound of talking upstairs by this time tomorrow, well...